The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1887-12-21
What Became OF Patagonia.

What Became OF P0tagOni0s
There used to be a place called Pat,
agonia. 1t appears on our Biographies
now as "a drear and uninhabitable
waste, upon which herds of wild horses
and cattle Craze, that are hunted for
their flesh by few bands OF savage
Indians of immense stature" | am
quoting from school-bOok published
in 1886, and in common use in this
country. The same geography gives
similar information about ''the Argen-
tine Confederation. 1t makes the
Argentines roar with rage to call their
country ''the Argentine Confedera-
tion." 1t would be just as polite and
proper to call this the Confederate
states of America" A bitter, bloody
war was sought to wipe the name off
the map, but our publishers still insist
upon keeping it there. 1t is not con-
federation; it is Nation, with a big
IN like ours-One and inseparable,
united we stand, divided we fall, and
all that sort of thing-the Argentine
Republic. To call it anything else is
an insult to the patriots who fought to
make it so, and reflection upon our
own intelligence.
Several years ago Patagonia was di-
vided between Chill and Argentine
Republic, the Ministers from the
United States to those two countries
doing the carving. The SUBMITS Of
the Cordilleras were fixed as the
boundary lines. Chill took the Strait
of Magellan and the strip along the
Pacific coast between the mountains
and the sea, and the Argentine Repub-
lie the pampas, the archipelago of
TERRA del Fuego being divided between
them. Since the partition ranchmen
have been pushing southwark with
great rapidity, and now the vast terri
tory is practically occupied. There
are no more wild cattle or horses there
than in Kansas, and the dreary unin-
habited wastes of Patagonia have gone
into oblivion with the Great Ameri-
can Desert" The remnant of vast
tribe of Aborigines still occupies the
interior, but the Indian problem of
the Argentine Republic was solved
in a summary way. There was
considerable annoyance on the from
tier from bands of rowing savages, who
used to come north in the winter-time,
steal cattle, rob, and ravish, and the
Outposts of civilization were not safe.
Gen. Roca, the Sheridan of the River
Plate, was sent with brigade Of cav
airy to the frontier to prevent this sort
of thing. East and west across the
territory runs the Rio Negro, swift,
turbid stream like the Mississippi,
with high banks. Fifty miles or so
from the mountains the river makes a
turn in its course, and leaves narrow
pathway through which everything
that enters or leaves Patagonia by
land must go. Across this pass of
fifty miles Gen. Roca dug ditch
| twelve feet deep and fifteen feet wide.
| The Indians, to the number of several
thousand were north when the work was
was done, raiding the settlements. AS
spring came they turned southwark as
usual, in long caravan, with their
stolen horses and cattle. Roca gal
loped around their rear, and drove
them night and day before him. When
they reached the ditch they became
bewildered, for they could not cross it,
and after a few days of slaughter the
remnant that survived surrendered
and were distributed through the army
as soldiers, while the women were sent
into q semi-slavery among the ranch
men they had robbed. The dead ami
mails and men were buried together in
the ditch, and there has been no fur
Their annoyance from Indians on the
frontier.
The few that remain seldom come
northward, but remain around Punta
Arenas, the only settlement in the
Strait, hunting the ostrich and other
wild game, trading the skins for
whiskey, and making themselves as
wretched as possible. The robes they
wear are made of the skins of the gu
anaco, species of the llama, and the
breasts of young ostriches. There is
nothing prettier than an ostrich robe,
but each one represents the slaughter
of from sixteen to twenty young birds,
and they are getting rare and expen-
sive as the birds are being eXtermin-
ated, as our buffaloes have BEEN
William E. Curtis, an Harper'S Maya
| si110